I started a new pathway at Toastmaster. The first project is ice breaker, to introduce yourself to the club. Instead of giving an overview of my bio, I decided to present differently… If I tell you that I’ve lived, studied, and worked in 5 countries and across 6 industries in the past 17 years, what …
Category Archives: Creativity
Simple Joy
I decided to ride a bike to the eye doctor appointment. The clinic is not far; I can exercise without worrying about parking. Also, after the retina test, I’ll have blurred vision/ sensitive to light for a few hours, it would be better not to drive. It worked out brilliantly! Sunny cool day, perfect to …
Talent of Cooking
My roommate said I should write a book about commented on my ‘talent of cooking’…not because I’m a Michelin star chef but because I cook everything with only 2 appliances: a rice cooker and a toaster oven. Anything wet goes into the rice cooker, e.g. soup, stew, and steam. Anything dry comes from the oven, …
What’s New?
I love fall, beautiful weather and colors. It’s too nice to stay indoor. I don’t have a back yard or patio so I head out to search for a spot…i found it in a nearby park, under 2 large trees and on top of the little hill…Sun shines through the leaves warm without burning, birds …
Transformation
A friend invited me to join her toastmaster club meeting. I received a private message from the chat during the meeting ‘is that you?’ from an old friend who quitted his job as an software engineer from a tech company to become a coach and speaker and travel around the world. Last time I heard …
It’ll be All Right
It’s my first time to be the toastmaster (host) of my home club’s meeting and on zoom. I checked in with the club president and our ‘tech guru’ 2 weeks prior. I reached out to the members the weekend (5 days) prior to the meeting to start the preparation (ask for speaker intro, coordinate with …
Mentality Creates Reality
I’m visiting Naledi-Polokwane Toastmaster club (virtual) meeting in South Africa. I volunteered at table topic (impromptu speaking) and was given the topic: ‘Yes, we’re back to reality’… For a split seconds, I wondered what it meant. Don’t we ‘always’ live in the reality? Or the topic meant that life is back to ‘normal’ (pre-Covid)? This …
Delegate and Grow
With tech team focusing on a large project with long development cycle, we need to do things differently. I asked non-tech teams to choose/ form task forces to work on the discovery, planning works of a few key areas. I then asked the product manager to lead the task force while I support it. He …
Survive => Thrive
I visited Boston Toastmaster club meeting. At table topic (impromptu speaking), I was asked to talk about ‘not only survive but thrive’… Two recent Toastmaster experiences were great examples and thanks to Covid-19: (1) Many clubs have brought their meetings online so I ‘could’ join tonight’s meeting. I couldn’t make the meeting in person with …
Always Making Progress
Over the past two weeks, a colleague and I have been calling sales to get buy-in and prepare for customer interviews. Most sales and ops teams were enthusiastic about product/ UX team’s interest in getting customer feedback even if it may not be the right time or circumstance to talk with customers now. What we …